House of Commons Past Paper
C) To what extent is the House of Commons effective in carrying out its various functions?

The House of Commons has many functions including those of passing effective legislation, representing the views of the people they represent and holding the government to account to ensure that all decisions made are based purely upon the desire to benefit the public and to scrutinise all the actions of the executive.

The House of Commons operates under a Whips system, whereby appointed MPs ensure that all members of a particular party vote in favour of their leaders decisions. This can prevent MPs from operating independently of their party and can impede the scrutiny of government as MPs are likely to vote for their leader regardless of their own objections. The importance of party loyalty within the House of Commons is also likely to reduce the effectiveness of scrutiny as MPs rarely rebel against their party's wishes; this can prove particularly disastrous when the executive proposes new legislation as, due to the First Past the Post system which rarely produces coalitions, the government is likely to have a majority and so most MPs will vote in favour of the government.

The number of effective bills passed also depends on the governments agenda and not on the will of parliament as it is the executive that draws up the Parliamentary timetable, meaning that most issues discussed will be those which the government and not the Commons wishes to discuss as very little legislation is initiated by backbench MPs not in the government. When legislation suggested by backbenchers, Private Members Bills, are proposed they are largely ineffective without government backing. However, although Parliament might not initiate a large amount of bills, it can persuade and influence the executive through active discussions.

The Commons can scrutinise the executive in a number of ways. Prime Ministers Question Time, occurring for half an hour every...

YOU MAY ALSO FIND THESE DOCUMENTS HELPFUL

...To WhatExtent is the House of CommonsEffective in Carryingout Its VariousFunctions?
The mechanisms placed in the House of Commons to ensure its effectiveness are vital to the democracy and overall quality of governing within the UK. Whilst government domination proves to be the key hindrance affecting the quality of theCommons’ work, the checks and balances and opportunities to scrutinise produce an effective chamber in regards to the most important of its functions.
The primary function of the House of Commons is being a law-making body and the majority government in the House of Commons can be argued as having improved the speed with which bills can be passed by the chamber, especially in relation to states of emergency such as the Anti-Terrorism Laws in 2007. However, it comes with the tendency to pass legislature that hasn’t been fairly scrutinised and to not consider bills that have been proposed by MPs outside of government, overlooking needed legislation simply because it hasn’t originated from the executive, with only 72 Private Member’s Bills being passed under the Labour government from 1997 to 2010. The executive’s domination of seats also means government-sponsored bills can be...

...﻿The House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the UK parliament and has been the dominant chamber for over a century.
Parliamentary sovereignty- a central principle of the British Constitution gives parliament legislative supremacy. The parliament has the main say in laws.
Motion of no confidence- the House of Commons can bring down the government with a vote of no confidence. The result of this is that all of government must resign and parliament is dissolved. There have only been four occasions of this since 1895. The most recent was in 1979 when James Callaghan’s government was defeated in a motion of no confidence.
Composition
The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber consisting of 650 members of parliament. Each MP is elected in single-member constituencies by FPTP. There can be adjustments made on the number of MPs.
In the chamber, the governing party of parties will sit to the right of the speaker with the cabinet ministers on the front bench. The shadow cabinet will sit opposite them on the front row with the various other MPs behind them. The MPs who sit behind the frontbenchers are known as backbenchers.
Almost all MPs are elected through representing a political party. Just 2 independent candidates were elected in 2005. In 2010 just one independent was voted into power.
Each...

...Parliament is known as a bi-cameral legislature where by decision making autonomy resides with the lower house. The House of Commons and the House of Lords exists as a check upon the powers exerted by respective governments thou right it’s debating and ratification functions. In theory, the bi-cameral legislature in British political system exists to ensure that policy and legislation is created democratically and secondly to protect the country from autocracy or the emergence of dictatorships. Although it could be argued that both of these functions of parliament have been apparent in recent history. In this essay I aim to answer the question to whatextent is parliament an effective constraint on the executive.
The first means available to parliament in scrutinizing the government is the debating and ratification functions of the House of Lords. After a bill has been proposed by the House of Commons, it is sent to the House of Lords for intense debate and discussion. After this has happened the House of Lords can pass the bill reject the bill absolutely or send the bill back to the House of Commons for amendment in its current state. However since the passing of the of the Parliament Act in 1997 the House of Lords has...

...﻿To whatextent does the EU control parliamentary functions. (25)
The European Union was established from EEC as a political and economic organisation through the “Treaty of Rome” in 1957. Currently there are 28 member countries in the EU and the UK Parliament passed the “European communities” Act in 1972 enabling UK to join the European Union in 1973. There are several institutions in the EU which all have separate functions which coincide with the functions of UK parliament. There are some areas of government which remain unaffected by the membership of the EU; however some policies are deeply affected. The EU membership has had a great effect of the UK constitution and the parliamentary functions.
A significant function of the UK parliament is being the highest legislative authority which is legally sovereign. This is due to “Parliamentary sovereignty” which ensures that parliament has the power to make and unmake binding laws; determine the nature of the constitution; and grant ultimate powers to individuals or other bodies. However it is argued that legal sovereignty only lies with the UK parliament except when it has conceded some powers to the EU in which case there is a situation of pooled sovereignty. Many eurosceptics in both the Labour and the Conservative party believe that the UK being a member state of the EU has led to the erosion of parliamentary...

...represent their constituencies. Each MP is given power through trusteeship when voted in, this meaning that they will try to carry outwhat is best for their constituency. They are also once voted in known as a mandate, the authority granted by a constituency to an MP to act as its representative.
In government the key stage of direct government representation comes from MP’s, these are the elected representatives from each of the constituencies who are voted into government in separate elections. The electoral system we have in the UK is debated whether it is a form of Parliament that is representative of its constituents. The first past the post system used in the UK is a system where the amount of votes gained within a constituency for a candidate has to have the most votes but not necessarily a majority. This then means the same for the amount of MPs who form parties, the amount of MPs voted in.Generally the party with a majority of constituencies can form a government but in the 2010 election a coalition has to be formed in the absence of a majority. Although this can be unfair to smaller parties this often creates strong government. Alternative vote (AV) is another electoral system by which voters place the candidates in their constituency in order of preference. After the count of first preference votes the candidate with least drops out and the second preference votes of those who voted for said candidate are...

...the roles of the House of Commons, House of Lords and the monarch in the formal process of the statue law creation
The House of Commons are the elected members of parliament. They are elected by the citizens so that they represent there views. The House of lords is traditionally regarded as the lower house, but it is the main parliamentary arena for political battle. A Government can only remain in office for as long as it has the support of a majority in the House of Commons. The House of Commons debates new primary legislation as part of the process of making an Act of Parliament, but the Commons has primacy over the non-elected House of Lords. Money related bills concerned with taxation and public expenditure, are always introduced in the Commons and must be passed by the Lords promptly and without amendment. When the two houses disagree on a non-money bill, the parliament Act can be invoked to ensure that the will of the elected chamber prevails. The House of Commons are the people who will know what the people want and as they are given bills to debate they will vote for or against the bill relating to what they think will benefit the people of society. The House also scrutinises the work of...

...REFORMS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND COMMONS.
Over the years, there has been a lot of problem over the very fact that the house of lords are not elected and are relatively independent of party and contains members with particular skills, expertise and interest in this kind of activities which in turn has created tensions between the commons which is a legitimate elected body, regarding their function, performances and their composition. But if we take parliament to be a collaborative set of processes in which both houses are involved it seems inappropriate to consider one house separate from the other. Perhaps this explains why the processes of reforms over the years has been a very difficult issue tackling.
Reforms of electoral system
The hereditary House of Lords was widely perceived as undemocratic. The present mixture of hereditary and appointed members was intended as an improvement, but some people think it is even worse because it gives too much power to the Prime Minister of the day. It remains hard to reach a consensus on what to do about the House of Lords. http://stvaction.org.uk/house_of_lords_reform
This is seemingly the simplest and most democratic option, leaving us to be governed by the fully elected House of Commons, but it would be desirable to improve the...

...﻿
The House of Commons: it’s current composition, its leaders,
the incumbent Speaker, the layout of the chamber.
1) Currently the United Kingdom is divided into 650 constituencies, with 533 in England, 40 in Wales, 59 in Scotland, and 18 in Northern Ireland. The timing of the dissolution is normally chosen by the prime minister , however, a parliamentary term may not last for more than five years.
2) The term "Member of Parliament" is normally used only to refer to Members of the House of Commons, even though the House of Lords is also a part of Parliament. Members of the House of Commons may use the post-nominal letters "MP". The annual salary of each Member is currently £63,291. Members may also receive additional salaries in right of other offices they hold (for instance, the Speakership). Most Members also claim between £100,000 and £150,000 for various office expenses (staff costs, postage, travelling, etc.) and, in the case of non-London Members, for the costs of maintaining a home in the capital.
3)
1. HM Government 56%
Conservative Party
Liberal Democrats
2. HM Most Loyal Opposition 39%
Labour Party
3. Other Opposition 5%
4) The Speaker of the House of Commons chairs debates in the Commons chamber. The holder of this office is an MP who has been elected to be Speaker by other...

Study Tools

Company

Follow

{"hostname":"studymode.com","essaysImgCdnUrl":"\/\/images-study.netdna-ssl.com\/pi\/","useDefaultThumbs":true,"defaultThumbImgs":["\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_1.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_2.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_3.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_4.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_5.png"],"thumb_default_size":"160x220","thumb_ac_size":"80x110","isPayOrJoin":false,"essayUpload":false,"site_id":1,"autoComplete":false,"isPremiumCountry":false,"userCountryCode":"US","logPixelPath":"\/\/www.smhpix.com\/pixel.gif","tracking_url":"\/\/www.smhpix.com\/pixel.gif","cookies":{"unlimitedBanner":"off"},"essay":{"essayId":36803839,"categoryName":"Governmental Bodies","categoryParentId":"12","currentPage":1,"format":"text","pageMeta":{"text":{"startPage":1,"endPage":2,"pageRange":"1-2","totalPages":2}},"access":"premium","title":"To What Extent Is the House of Commons Effective in Carrying Out Its Various Functions?","additionalIds":[3,2,48,17],"additional":["Business \u0026 Economy","Awards \u0026 Events","Awards \u0026 Events\/Events","Literature"],"loadedPages":{"html":[],"text":[1,2]}},"user":null,"canonicalUrl":"http:\/\/www.studymode.com\/essays\/To-What-Extent-Is-The-House-1343170.html","pagesPerLoad":50,"userType":"member_guest","ct":10,"ndocs":"1,500,000","pdocs":"6,000","cc":"10_PERCENT_1MO_AND_6MO","signUpUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/signup\/","joinUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/join","payPlanUrl":"\/checkout\/pay","upgradeUrl":"\/checkout\/upgrade","freeTrialUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/signup\/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.studymode.com%2Fcheckout%2Fpay%2Ffree-trial\u0026bypassPaymentPage=1","showModal":"get-access","showModalUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/signup\/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.studymode.com%2Fjoin","joinFreeUrl":"\/essays\/?newuser=1","siteId":1}